Back in October, UU Momma wrote a very thoughtful post about righteousness, and the struggle that can come from needing to be right over hearing the concerns of others, even if you are, in fact, *right*.

I get that, totally. I’m as stubborn as a mule, just ask anyone. It is a daily struggle for me to keep my mouth shut for just a minute until I process the whole sentence that might be on its way out to make sure that I’m not totally railroading someone else. Engaging in small group ministry at my church, where we practice deep listening in tandem with deep sharing, is helping me a lot with this.

But there’s a flip side that I’ve been thinking about lately, as just another straw has hit the proverbial camel in the past few days. There is also a great need to be able to admit when you’re *wrong*. Particularly if you are in a position of some power.

I feel that it is of great importance to be able to see how you might be hurting someone else with your words, and also to be able to stand up to someone, particularly someone in a position of more power than you, and say, “Hey, what you just did right there? That totally sucked, and here’s why.”

That latter part is really wearying, because often the person in the power-position feels that they are risking that power if they admit that they might be wrong, or thoughtless, and that they should perhaps rethink their position and apologize. And so they don’t listen. And so you are not heard, even though you know that you are right, and they are wrong. Sometimes you even get patted on the head and told to “run along.”

And that starts to fester.

I know both sides of this struggle — I’ve been the person building up the castle made of sand, refusing to back down, shoring up the melting foundations with false righteousness. It is hard to give in to the truth sometimes, especially when you’ve spent a lot of effort to preserve your position. But I also have come to find that the other side is more painful, knowing that you’re right and that the other person just refuses to give in and is hurting others in their own stubbornness. This is when it’s not okay to just let it go, no matter how small that last straw might seem to be.

I know I’m being deliberately obtuse, here, so I’ll end with some reassurance that the issues provoking this post have nothing to do with my marriage, my family, or my congregation.